Hope
by Skellagirl
Summary: Korra is taking care of Tarrlok after the explosion, and he is not without his uncertainties about the future. -Light Korra/Tarrlok, contains talk of suicide-


I fell hard and fast for this pairing after the finale. It's so deliciously complex and angsty, haha.

I don't own anything, Nick/Bryke does

* * *

Korra is restless but quiet when she sleeps, tiny, through-teeth gasps and grunts interrupting her breathing. He wonders what she dreams about, whether she's conversing with Aang and her other past lives, or reliving moments better left buried. He watches her face, watches her closed eyes twitch, her brows draw together, her nostrils flare. There's so much movement, but it's so miniscule, almost unnoticeable. She clenches her fists and mumbles, looking displeased, and sometimes she giggles breathily, wrapping her arms round herself. Sometimes she cries, silently, but he watches her cheeks and her nose flush, watches the tears roll down her face.

And that is when Tarrlok finds himself maddeningly empathetic for her.

Despite everything, despite all the importance he tries to shovel upon himself, all the attention he does his best to garner, all the heroic deeds he tries to do to wedge his way into the peoples' good graces, despite everything he does and all the responsibility he takes on, he will never know what it's like to be the Avatar. In a way, he's jealous (Not that he would ever _admit_ it), because no matter what he does, his role for humanity will never be as important as Korra's. On the other hand, he finds her sad, in a very mystical, nearly beyond his comprehension sort of way. There is so much resting on her shoulders, a whole other realm of existence that she seems to be on, all the energy and life of countless Avatars before her crammed far into her very being, into one young girl who's still just trying to find her place in the world. There's something almost unfair about it, for her to be saddled with so much, and he wishes he could see inside her mind, to just touch on the surface the things she must experience, the things only something like an Avatar can know.

Actually, he feels a little pity for her, too. From the outside, she's just a normal eighteen-year-old girl, a tough-on-the-outside, small-and-quivering-on-the-inside sort of person who's trying to convince herself that she's every bit as confident as she would like to believe. She's so unassuming, yet her inner workings are far more complex than any other human being alive, like comparing the worlds to the galaxy within which they are contained. She is the living, breathing life-force of the planet, and she is here, sleeping beside him, that familiar ruddy flush starting to color her cheeks.

Tarrlok folds his arms across his chest (His right hand is gone now, and he is thankful he can't remember how it happened), watching her. It started shortly after he returned to Republic City after blowing up his and Noatok's boat, barely alive and seeking some sort of redemption. He still doesn't quite understand it (Since, last he checked, she hated him – maybe knowing the truth about his past had changed her opinion), but she comes anyway, without prior announcement or invitation, and he's never had the heart to turn her away. He is hesitatingly okay with admitting that his own selfishness had most everything to do with that, his own private satisfaction at the idea that Avatar Korra would prefer his company over her friends' or her mentor's. Maybe she does still hate him and is keeping her eye on him, or maybe she genuinely wants to be near him, for whatever reason, but he is loathe to refuse her. He doesn't know if he could refuse her anything now.

There's something far more maddening than feeling empathy for Korra, and that is feeling _love_ for her.

He had wanted to die, back there on that boat, and he'd felt like he deserved it. Yet, for whatever reason, he'd survived, and come back to Republic City a far less confident, self-assured, and happy man than he'd been before. And Korra – _Korra_, out of all people – had helped him. She'd taken him in, kept him company when not many other people would, brought him supplies while he struggled over the brunt of his recovery. At first he hadn't wanted anything other than her forgiveness – _spirits_, he had begged for it, and it had been one of the hardest things he had ever done, but she had folded and given it to him. Things after that had been tense, heated, as angry as they'd always been between him and her, and then, somewhere along the lines, everything… shifted. Things became… amiable, even _friendly_, albeit not without the not-so-occasional moment of irritation, and then where else did friendship have to go but attraction? Tarrlok doesn't know what her feelings are, but he is all too aware of his own.

He doesn't want to protect Korra – nothing so "dashing" and "romantic" as that. He just wants to be near her, emotionally, physically, intimately. He wants to take her out to the docks at night and watch the water, sprawl out on his bed and read books to her, watch her practice bending, hold her close and kiss her face. He wants to drive her around Republic City in that roadster he'd bought for her so long ago (What had she done with that thing, anyway?), to get to know her and the things that make her tick, to talk and laugh and confide in one another. For once in his entire life, he wants to be another person's confidant, to keep _her_ secrets instead of his own. He wants to tell her how highly he thinks of her, as a person, an opponent, as a woman, tell her how grateful he is for everything she's done for him, because she's done so much despite her own dislike of him. He realizes now, with no small amount of discomfort, that he did not deserve any of the kindness she extended to him, and that just draws him to her further. Despite her headstrong attitude and her brash, proud immaturity, she is not above helping somebody who wronged her, even somebody who had wronged her as much as Tarrlok had, and he knows he will never have the words to express how that makes him feel, nor the ability to show her.

Ironically, he's never had much confidence in romantic pursuits. It'd been an easy thing to take up politics and manhandle his way to the top, but something as fragile and uncalculated as romance makes him nervous. It is the opposite of everything he'd been taught and raised to know. There can't be any secrets, no manipulation, no dishonesty. Everything he'd done to survive under his father, and in the council, the things he'd spent his entire life perfecting, he would have to undo it all, unravel himself and reveal all his dirty little spots, the things even he does not like facing. Romance is being vulnerable, and Tarrlok _hates_ being vulnerable. On top of it all, he is afraid that he would become his father. It's bad enough that whatever children he has (If any) would automatically have to be cursed with Yakone's legacy, but becoming to them what his father had been to him… The thought's enough to make his stomach turn.

He shifts, sitting forward. Korra is about a foot away, laying on top of the blankets, her feet bare except for her ill-fitting socks. He remembers her telling the story of how Ikki (Or had it been Jinora? He can't keep the two straight) had knitted them for her, for her birthday. Her flush is gone, and now she seems peaceful, her stomach rising and falling as she breathes. His chest tightens, _aches_ for her, and he reaches out to stroke her loose hair out of her face. His fingers tremble. He almost laughs. Noatok – not Amon – would have laughed, too, that such a small gesture is enough to render him an anxious, quivering thing. All the horrible, difficult things he's had to do to get where he is now, all of it seems like child's play in comparison to this.

Korra stirs, and Tarrlok pulls his hand away as she wakes up and rubs her face. She pauses, meeting his gaze, and then pushes herself up onto her elbows.

"Everything alright?" she asks, casting a glance around the area, evidently in search of intruders. The room they're in is part of the Air Temple, although he's not sure where. He knows that it's not the cell he'd been in before, and that nobody besides her ever passes or comes in, so it must be at least fairly secluded. It's a dusty, rickety place, filled with old barrels and boxes, but it's secure against the weather, and, with the mattress that Korra had procured, rather cozy. He doesn't like to think of where he'll go once he's fully recovered.

"Yes, as far as I can tell," he says, folding his arms again. She blinks, and after a moment, sits up.

"Why aren't you asleep?"

He doesn't answer, because he can't think of an answer that doesn't somehow include him confessing everything to her.

"Something bothering you?" She pulls her socks up, sitting cross-legged.

"I just said everything's alright," he says. "It doesn't concern you, Avatar." She raises her eyebrows, smirking.

"Okay, okay," she says. She stretches, her arms over her head, cracking her knuckles. "How are your injuries?" He examines himself, then offers her a half-shrug.

"I feel fine," he says. "I can take a beating, you know. I did grow up in the Northern Water Tribe."

"Ooh, big deal," Korra says, amused. "I grew up in the _Southern_ Water Tribe, and everybody knows that one's way worse." She reaches over him and bends some water out of the basin on the floor. With one hand, she pulls his left arm free and envelopes it with the water, which has now taken on a dull blue glow.

"Yes, well, maybe so, but I think I definitely got the short end of the stick as far as childhood goes," Tarrlok says, giving her a cross between a smile and a grimace. She returns the comical expression, and he laughs despite himself. She does, too.

"Yeah," she says softly, waving her hands back and forth over his arm, "you're probably right."

He watches her hands, the way she moves them. It's more graceful than a lot of waterbenders he's met, himself included. She has the distinctive flair of somebody who's trained vigilantly, not having had to fight for survival like most younger people here in Republic City. She's more precise, less willing to cut corners in the name of speed, her carefulness probably garnered from having to redo the movements and gestures hundreds of times over. He knows what it's like, doing the same move over and over again until it's perfect, and he wonders if any of her teachers were ever as strict or as hard as his had been.

She finishes with that arm and moves to the huge scar on his shoulder, refreshing her water supply. Besides his missing hand, this is by far his worst injury, impeding some movement of his arm, and it still gives a dull throb of defiance when she uses her healing powers on it. He can't even remember what had happened to it, but he remembers trying to bend the blood back into his body and being horrified when it didn't work. In retrospect, it was probably better that it didn't. Now it's mostly healed, a messy knot of scar tissue and puckered skin, an ugly reminder of what happened that day Noatok had tried to take him away. He always hears kids in the street bragging about their scars and the stories behind them, and now, surveying all the damage to his limbs, all the whip-like scratches and scattered marks all over his body, the roughness of his skin, he understands even less. Who would _want_ to be reminded of stuff like this?

Korra lets her water drop back into the basin, sloshing it around with lazy rotations of her wrist. He stares at her, eyes wandering over her moonlit skin, over the arch of her back, the lines of her muscles, the curve of her neck. Her hair is loose, tumbling over her shoulders, and his hand tingles at the thought of dragging his nails through it. She is close enough that all he'd have to do is reach out and slip his arms around her torso, pull her in, cradle her against his chest, and the thought is so, _so _tempting, but he resists. She glances sideways at him, pausing when she catches his eye.

"What?" she asks, pulling the water back up and gesturing for him to open his robe.

"Nothing," Tarrlok says, a little too defensively. He does as she requests, revealing another long couple of scars traveling horizontally across his stomach. "Thinking."

"Really?" she asks, laying her water over the wounds. The glow returns. "Because it kiiind of looked like you were checking me out." She gives him a look, a knowing sort of look that sends a shock of paranoia through him. He scrambles to regain his thoughts, managing to slide back into his usual cool demeanor before his embarrassment shows on his face.

"With all due respect, Ava—_Korra_," he says, "you are rather easy on the eyes."

She snorts. "Easy there, tigerbear," she says, cocking an eyebrow, and after a moment, adds, "I know." She puffs out her chest.

She finishes with his stomach, refreshes her water, and moves onto the scars that snake down his legs, covering as much as she can without pulling his shorts up awkwardly high. She'd spent a long time, accompanied by a doctor who'd somehow been convinced to help, picking little bits of shrapnel out of his skin; the first couple weeks after the explosion had been some of the worst in his life. It had been vaguely surreal to see so much blood and not be able to bend it, but it was comforting at the same time. Korra had outright refused to give his bending back, and so far she's stuck hard and fast to her decision, not that he's asked her many times. Even now, he really has no desire to bend again. It's relieving, in a way, and frightening in another.

Tarrlok grits his teeth, tensing, pulling himself back to the present. Korra, apparently sensing his discomfort, turns to face him. "Did that hurt?" she asks. He gives her a tiny shake of his head. She stares at him, long and hard, so intensely that he can feel it even though he's not looking at her. She slumps back, relaxing, returning to her work. "Amon really changed you, didn't he?" she asks, her voice quiet.

"Mm." Carefully, he scratches his chin, rubbing his fingers over the uneven scruff there. "Finding out Amon's real identity was trying, to say the least," he says. He takes a long, deep breath, closing his eyes. "I… miss him."

She pauses and faces him again. After a moment, she lays a hand on his. "I'm sorry, Tarrlok," she says. She moves, bending her water to his other leg.

"Korra," he says.

"Yeah?"

"Can I… ask you something?" He looks up at her, and she nods, an earnest look in her eyes.

"… Yeah. Of course," she says.

He searches for the right words, and the confidence to use them. Of all the things he has done and will ever do, letting another human being get close to him is among the hardest. Korra is no exception. Maybe it's stupid of him to want her, but what else does he have? No family, no friends, no job, not even any real life to speak of. She is the only thing he has right now and, consequently, the most painful thing to lose should she decide to end her hospitality.

"I wasn't expecting to live through that explosion, back on the boat," he says. She finishes with his leg and climbs off the bed, picking up the basin and carrying it to the sink on the wall opposite the mattress. She glances over her shoulder at him, urging him on. "To be honest, I didn't really _want_ to live through that explosion." He laughs, without conviction. "It's not like there's anything here for me now, anyway. I just want to know _why_."

Korra looks over her shoulder again as she rinses out the bowl. "What do you mean?" she asks.

Tarrlok runs his hand through his hair, pushing it out of his face, wincing as his shoulder resists the movement. "Why did I survive? I mean – I lived through a massive explosion in the middle of the _ocean_, Korra, I must have some purpose here, right?" She's standing at the bedside now, her bowl full of fresh water, and he looks up at her, dejected. She knits her brow in concentration, then sets the basin on the floor and climbs over him, back onto the bed.

"You don't want to be here," she says, "do you?" She pulls herself closer, settling her hands in her lap. "You still want to die."

He looks away from her, frowning, swallowing hard past the lump that's forming in his throat. "I just… don't understand why I'm still here, is all. I don't want…" He falters, stumbles over his words, struggles and pushes past his insecurities. "I don't want to just start a new life under a new name and a new identity. That's what my father did."

She pinches her lips together, realization dawning in her eyes. "I get it," she says. "You're afraid of turning out like Yakone."

He doesn't reply.

She leans over him, bending some water into her hand, then setting it on his face, over the burnt skin of his cheek. She turns his face so that he's looking at her. She looks vaguely amused. "Tarrlok, just because he turned out that way doesn't mean you have to," she says. "You've got control over where your life goes. If you decide you don't want to be like him, then don't be like him."

"That's exactly what I thought I'd been doing this _whole time_," he says, frustrated. "Ever since I came to Republic City years ago, I've been trying _so hard_ to be the opposite of what Yakone wanted me to be, and it _didn't work_." He grits his teeth, leaning towards her, grabbing one of her wrists. She stares up at him with those wide blue eyes, absorbed. "I don't want to wake up in another twenty years and realize that I never managed to escape him. That I tried so hard, for so long, for nothing. Wouldn't it just be easier to just end it now, before it can begin?"

"Tarrlok-"

"Korra, _please_." He tightens his grip on her wrist, and her other hand falls limp, her bending forgotten, her water running down his neck. "I am… _terrified_ of becoming like him."

She is motionless for a couple of seconds that seem to pass in the blink of an eye, and then she realizes that her healing water is now soaking through Tarrlok's robe. She pulls her hand free and bends the water back to her, glancing between it and him.

"I don't know what to tell you," she says at length, returning the water to his face. And then she doesn't say anything. He wishes that she would continue. She has to have the solution, she's the _Avatar_! That's her job!

He wants to start over, he does. A small, nervous part of him wants to go back to Republic City and fix everything he wronged, experience a life where he can do everything over again, the right way. He wonders how much the people of the city know. Do they know he's Yakone's son? Do they know about his prodigious bending and all the terrible things he did with it? Do they know about his relation to the leader of the Equalists? Would they hate him? Surely his reputation as a politician would haunt him, if not his reputation as the son of one of Republic City's most feared crime lords, or the brother of the terrible Amon. What is he supposed to do? Just go back and hope for the best? Live in secrecy? How is he supposed to work? Nobody would want to hire him after everything he's done, and besides that, he's a non-bender now – a non-bender with one hand. There's not much he can do.

He feels overwhelmed. He _is_ overwhelmed, and dreadfully alone.

He shifts, moving forward, readjusting himself. All his limbs feel stiff, underused. He looks at Korra, who looks back, holding his gaze. She smiles, a little sadly, bending her water back into the basin to face him with empty hands.

He feels his chest tighten again, a surge of heat running through him. She is strong, brave, smart, compassionate… oozing charm and full of infectious optimism, and all he wants is to be close to her. There are moments when he can't stand her, when her stubbornness and pride annoys him so much he wonders if talking to her is even worth it or not, but it would be flat-out stupid for him to deny his feelings. Despite his uncertainty, his indifference towards his present situation, she makes him feel _alive_. He wants to be like her, to just be in her presence and learn to see things the way she does. He doesn't want to_ be_ Tarrlok anymore, at least not the same Tarrlok as before.

He exhales, realizing that he hasn't moved for some time, and that Korra is still staring at him expectantly. Wordlessly, he reaches towards her, pausing to judge her reaction. The next second, she slides her arms around his shoulders and pulls him close. He wastes no time returning the embrace. _Spirits_, it's better than he ever expected. She's warm and soft, and her hair smells like some kind of spice, and she buries her face in the crook of his neck and sends sparks through his body. He wraps his arms tighter around her, his hand on the back of her neck, pressing his cheek against her temple. Maybe the best part of all is that she doesn't fight or object, or even seem to mind at all. It's nice enough to have her in his arms, but to have her of her own accord – there's something inexplicable about it.

Korra is the first to pull away, and he misses her warmth as soon as it's gone. She licks her lips, pushing her hair behind her ears, and looks down at her feet, apparently conflicted.

"I… can't believe I'm offering this, but... I can try to ask Tenzin if we can house you for a while. After you're recovered, I mean," she says with a laugh. "I don't know if he'll agree, but I can ask, if you want."

Tarrlok blinks, then smiles, bewildered and reluctantly optimistic. He wonders how slim the chance of Tenzin saying yes is, or how Korra will even bring the subject up at all, but at least it's better than being kicked out as soon as he can stand on his own. It's nerve-wracking to think about, about how things will change, and how utterly and completely different his life will be, but thanks to her, at least there is _some_ hope.

"I would like that very much," he says, and she smiles at him.


End file.
